Goldilocks and the 3 Bears (erm… houses)
by Some1FoundMe
Summary: Oliver and Felicity search for their dream house. This is follow-up to my fics "Not Another Mistake" and "Camden, Maine" so if you haven't read either of those, then this one is probably going to throw you off a little.
1. Too Big

**Title: **Goldilocks and the 3 Bears (erm… houses)

**Author:** Some1LostMe

**Rating: **K+

**Spoilers:** Set after season 2

**Summary: **Oliver and Felicity search for their dream house. This is follow-up to my fics "Not Another Mistake" and "Camden, Maine" so if you haven't read either of those, then this one is probably going to throw you off a little.

**A/N:** For those of you who read "Camden, Maine" thank you so much for reading and the reviews! They keep me going, just so you know Also, like the Camden piece, this is a 3 part fic however it is complete and all parts are posted. Enjoy!

**Goldilocks and the 3 Bears (erm… houses)**

**Too Big**

She turned and examined the room around her. It seemed to stretch for miles in every direction. She knew, of course, that that wasn't really the case but honestly, the place was huge. It was a newer home, with an open floor plan, and from her place in the center of the living room, she could see into what she assumed was the dining room and into the kitchen. She caught a glimpse of the backyard from the French doors at the opposite end of the house. The hardwood floors beneath her feet where shiny and dark, stunningly beautiful really, and they were wall to wall from what she could see.

Oliver tugged on her hand and she followed him in stunned silence as the realtor led them upstairs. They found two large bedrooms, adjoined by a modest sized bathroom, before coming to stand in what was surely the largest bedroom she'd ever stood in. She wondered vaguely if it was bigger than Oliver's bedroom at the mansion. She wouldn't know, of course, because she'd never been in his old room. Even after he'd left her alone to be found by Slade's men, she had never left the foyer. She'd been too scared to be curious.

"I'll leave you two alone for a moment. Just come find me when you're ready, Mr. Queen."

She turned as the realtor, Janet, left them alone in the master suite. Oliver stood behind her, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched her carefully. She crossed her arms and mirrored his stance.

"What do you think?" he asked, his mouth turning up in an amused smirk.

She shrugged, "It's a beautiful house. It's big."

He nodded, his eyes leaving hers briefly to sweep around the room. When he looked at her again, there was something in his expression that she couldn't quite name.

"It is. Can you see us here? It's new, never lived in, which means we can do whatever we want with it. It needs paint and furniture and a dog in the backyard but I think it could work. I can see us here, me and you. I can picture it."

Her heart stuttered in her chest. She could picture it, too. The two of them with a dog and, as unbidden as the image was, a baby. She knew that they weren't quite ready for that yet. A family was not even in the realm of possibilities for them at this point but that didn't mean that her imagination couldn't conjure up the image of a little blue-eyed boy with unruly hair and a wild spirit. This house would certainly be big enough for them and at least two children. They would have plenty of space. But for now, it would be just her and Oliver in a house that would feel cold and empty most of the time.

She sighed, dropping her arms to her sides and trying not to fidget. He seemed happy with his choice, this large house that was making her ridiculously uncomfortable all of a sudden.

"It's a little too big," she confessed, "We don't need all of this space, Oliver. Not right now and maybe never. I think… I think it would feel cold. There's nothing cozy about it, you know? It's too much space and we don't have enough people to fill it. I'd prefer something smaller, somewhere that I could walk into any room and feel like it's ours. Does that even make any sense?"

He closed the distance between them, coming to stand in front of her and letting his hands rest on his shoulders. She brought hers up to grasp his forearms.

"Whatever you want, Felicity. And I get it. Growing up… growing up our house was also cold, empty. My parents were always traveling and Thea and I spent more time home with Raisa than with either my mother or father," he shrugged, "I guess I just … I think I was planning for the future that I've mapped out in my head."

She blinked up at him. She was fairly certain her mouth had dropped open in surprise. They hadn't talked much about their future beyond the agreement that they would look at houses after their trip to Camden. There'd been no talk of how long this would last or where their lives would go. And she was perfectly okay with that. Their lives were complicated, his especially, and she was happy to take it one day at a time. So the fact that he had a future planned out for them made her heart race that much faster.

The hands on her shoulders moved to cup her face and he rested his forehead against hers.

"Say something," he urged.

She smiled, her eyes closing at the pleading tone of his voice.

"Tell me about this future of ours," she breathed, "Tell me what you want for us, Oliver."

He hesitated for a moment, the lingering silence between them oddly comfortable, and his thumbs skimmed back and forth across her jaw. She waited with more patience than she thought that she possessed. He still held back, still hesitated sometimes before opening up to her, but she knew that he was trying. She'd learned so much about him, much more than she'd ever thought that he would share, but she wouldn't push him. He'd been through too much and if he didn't want to talk, she wouldn't try to make him.

"I don't know. I want… I want a life with you, Felicity. And I know that I don't deserve it, that I'm not good enough for –"

She shook her head, pulling away from him and looking up into his clouded eyes.

"I hate it when you do that, you know. I get to decide whose good enough for me. My life, my choice, remember? And you are good enough, you're more than good enough. You're perfect. Perfect for me because I know that no one is really, truly, _perfect_but you are perfect for me. So please stop with the self-deprecating _manpain_and just suck it up. I chose you and I'm going to keep choosing you."

He cocked his head, his expression lighter, more amused.

"_Manpain_?"

She shrugged, flushing slightly, "Yes. You get all moody and mopey and you brood better than anyone else that I know but I can't take it. Not when you're talking about us. You have no reason to brood. You have no reason to doubt how much I love you. I've yet to give you a reason to think that I'm going to leave, Oliver, that I'm going to turn my back on you, so stop worrying about it."

He shook his head, "Doesn't mean that it won't happen. It just means I haven't messed this up yet."

She sighed again and stepped out of his reach. She moved to the window that overlooked the expansive backyard. He followed her, coming to stand behind her, the heat of his body against her back.

"Even when you mess up, nothing you do is going to be enough to make me leave you. You have to have a little more faith in me," she muttered.

His arms slipped around her waist, holding her against him.

"I'm sorry."

Her hands rested on top of his arms, her nails trailing over the sinewy muscles that held her captive. They had a lot to work on. He had a lot of emotional baggage, baggage that she was more than willing to help him carry, but she wasn't quiet used to the weight of it.

"It's okay. Let's go find, Janet, okay? She's probably wondering what the hell we're doing up here."

He nodded, brushing her hair to the side and pressing a swift kiss to the skin he'd exposed. Taking her hand, he led her downstairs to where Janet was waiting for them on the front porch. They told her that they wanted to keep looking and she understood. House number one was officially checked off of the list.


	2. Too Small

**Goldilocks and the 3 Bears (erm… houses)**

**Too Small**

They'd looked at a dozen houses and she'd found something that she disliked about each of them. They'd been too big, too small, too far from work, too far from the new lair. The list of her dislikes was ever-expanding and he was beginning to wonder if she was trying to tell him something by shooting down each and every place that they'd seen. He knew that she was happy with him and she has assured him more than she should have to that she isn't going anywhere. But they'd been living in the penthouse for more than a month now, eating out for every meal, and while his offshore accounts were well stocked, he didn't want to drain them while they continued to search for somewhere that they could call home.

"There's no way," she said, her voice pulling him from his thoughts, "It's way too small. Oliver, the doorways are hardly tall enough for me to get through! You'll crack your head open! It's like a freaking hobbit house!"

He couldn't help but chuckle at that. The house was too small, way too small, and just standing in the entryway made him feel claustrophobic.

He caught the exasperated expression on Janet's face and he felt for her. Felicity wasn't making it easy for their realtor and he knew that there was some kind of underlying issue. He knew that it had to be more than her being picky about finding the right house.

"Why don't we take a break for a while?" he suggested, casting a glance at Janet, "We'll take some time, see if we can come up with a better idea of what exactly it is that we're looking for and we'll call you when we're ready to start looking again."

Before either Felicity or Janet could protest, he slipped his arm around Felicity's waist and steered her from the house. He expected her to complain about what he'd decided, mostly because he had made the decision without her, but she was quiet as she climbed onto the back of the motorcycle behind him. She wrapped her arms around him, her small hands clutching his jacket over his chest, her front to his back, as he revved the bike and pulled away from house number sixteen.

It wasn't until they were out on the open road, wind rushing past them so loudly that he could hardly hear, that he felt her shaking. She was crying, he could feel it in the way that her body trembled against him, and as soon as he was able, he pulled off onto a side street and killed the engine. Her arms tightened, not allowing him to dismount the bike as he wanted to, and all he could do was remain where he was until her tears dried and she released him. When she finally let up, he climbed from the bike and turned to her, pulling her into the circle of his arms and burying his nose in her hair.

"What happened, Felicity? What's going on? Talk to me," he prompted.

She sniffled, shaking her head a little, and pulled away from him. She kept her eyes down for a long moment before lifting her head, blue meeting blue.

"It's not working."

He froze, his hands on her back stopping their steady, comforting circles. His heart stuttered painfully in his chest. He waited for her to elaborate, to tell him exactly what wasn't working. Because it sounded like she was telling him that _they_ weren't working. That the two of them weren't working. But he'd thought that everything between them was fine. Yes, finding a house was becoming more stressful than he'd expected and he knew that the stress of that on top of getting the new location up to par and finding a way to get back Queen Consolidated was putting a lot of pressure on all of them, her especially, but he hadn't realized how truly overwhelmed she was.

"Why can't we do this? Why isn't there a perfect house out there for us, too? People find their dream homes all the time with a lot smaller budget than ours. Not that I'm saying I need a million dollar dream home or even half-a-million dollar dream home. To be completely honest, I could care less what the house costs I just –" she took a breath, her voice trailing off.

He struggled to keep the grin off of his face. He found her rambling charming, adorable even, and no matter what it was she was rambling about, it was difficult not to be affected by her. He was more than a little relieved by her explanation.

"You just what?"

She scraped a hand through her tangled hair and he cupped her face, his thumbs brushing away the remnants of her tears.

"I just want to find a place that feels like us, Oliver. A place that feels like home. I never… I don't know. When I was young, my mom and I moved around a lot after my dad left. Usually from one shitty apartment to the next. After college, when I moved here, I took the first clean, safe place that I could find. It wasn't much, just a small two bedroom apartment not too far from work and I loved it. I loved it because it was mine and because it was home. It was a blank slate and I could do whatever I wanted – well, not whatever I wanted I guess because I was leasing the place – but I could make it feel like it was mine. My furniture in every room, my dishes in the cabinets, my pictures on the walls. When I went home at night, I was happy and comfortable. I never really had that before. We didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up and my mom didn't particularly care what kind of furniture we had as long as we had something. It was always mismatched hand-me-downs that weren't clean or comfortable. And I don't think there's anything wrong with hand-me-downs, that makes me sound incredibly stuck up, but I – I'm done with that phase of my life."

He sighed, resting his forehead against hers.

"We're going to find a place that is absolutely perfect for us, even if that means that we have to take the time to design it ourselves and build it. And I'm not saying that because I think we have unlimited funds. I know that we're working with a budget, Felicity, but I want you to be happy," he told her, "Our home may not exist yet because there may be no one out there like us. We're not exactly typical, you know. So maybe we haven't found our dream home yet because it hasn't been anyone else's dream home. It may not exist until we create it ourselves."

She shook her head, "We're not building a house. Not yet anyway. We'll keep looking. I'm up for taking a break though. I need to – I need to get my head around some things before we start searching again."

He kissed her, just a quick brush of his lips to hers, and tugged her back into his chest. He held her for a long moment. He understood why she was being so selective about their home. She wanted to find somewhere that she would never want to leave, a house that she would wake up every day and love. He knew that they would find that place because he would make sure of it. But he also knew that he had to convince her that finding their dream home wasn't so much about the house itself but about the people living in it. Anywhere that they called home together would be perfect for him.

"We should head back. John's expecting us at the new location. He may have left me a message, something about Roy dropping one of my computers," she huffed, "If he broke something, will you do me a favor and put an arrow in his other leg?"

He laughed, pressing another swift kiss to her lips before climbing back onto the motorcycle. He kicked it to life, the rumble of the engine rattling through him as she joined him, her arms coming around him again. She clung to him, her hands sliding beneath the hem of his jacket this time to grip his t-shirt. Her chin rested on his shoulder.

"Nothing fatal," she continued, "Just something excruciatingly painful. Oh, and if it takes a long time to heal, that would be good, too. Someone needs to let that kid know he's got to be more careful with my equipment."


	3. Just Right

**Goldilocks and the 3 Bears (erm… houses)**

**Just Right**

She stumbled upon it completely by accident. She'd been driving to the new lair – she couldn't figure out what she wanted to call it just yet - from a job interview. A completely bogus interview that she had taken only because they'd wanted to gather intel on the company and its CEO, Douglas Kemp. He was their new target. A corrupt one-percenter who'd been involved in a drug trafficking ring that had popped up in Starling City after Slade's rampage. The interview had actually gone quite well, she'd been offered the job on the spot, but she'd told them that she'd have to think about it. Of course, there was nothing to think about. She wasn't going to take a job with anyone but Oliver but she hadn't exactly been able to tell them that so she'd bought herself some time, asking if she could call the next day with her answer.

So it had been while she'd been driving, her head trying to form a clear and regretful 'no thank you', when she'd come across the house. She'd turned down a side road that she hadn't recognized, her brain too focused on creating a reason why she had to turn down the job at Kemp Industries to realize that she wasn't where she was supposed to be. When she pulled over in front of the house in search of her phone, the sign in the front yard had caught her by surprise.

She dialed Oliver's number.

"Hey, where are you?" he asked worriedly, "You said you were coming straight back here. That was twenty minutes ago."

Getting out of the car, she surveyed the front yard, casting a glance up and down the street. The house sat on a large lot, empty lots on either side of it, and she couldn't see a neighboring house from where she stood.

"I got turned around," she explained, "Oliver, I – I think I found it."

He was quiet on the other end but she paid no attention to his silence. Instead, she clutched her phone to her ear and her keys in her other hand, and made her way up the front walk. The yard was a little overgrown, there were weeds in the flower beds along the front porch, and she imagined that the house had been empty for a while. Standing at the bottom of the front steps, she felt her heart begin to gallop in her chest.

"Found what, Felicity? Where are you?" he questioned.

"Our house."

She climbed the steps and peered into one of the large picture windows that flanked the front doors. She had been doing a lot of research, looking for anything that would spark her interest, and she'd found that she was partial to the craftsman style houses that really weren't that popular in Starling City. So the fact that she had stumbled upon this one, with its green wooden shingles and striking white trim, amazed her. The front door was oak, three small panes of glass lining the top, and she felt her breath catch as she looked in on the expansive front rooms. The floors, from what she could see, were hardwood, a large, beautiful staircase broke up the living space and an image of them, of her and Oliver and the dog that they had yet to get, filled her head. She could easily picture them here.

"Damn it, Felicity, where are you?" Oliver growled.

She started a little at his tone, realizing that she had been so drawn to the house that she hadn't realized that her lack of conversation was worrying him.

"1515 Courier Lane. I'll be here when you get here. Hurry up."

"Stay on the phone!" he barked before she could disconnect the call.

She shook her head, "I'm just going to look around, Oliver. The house is empty. Call Janet and ask her to meet us here."

She hung up, pocketing her phone before leaving the porch and walking around the side of the house. The driveway led to a two car garage that didn't face the road but rather one of the empty lots next door. The carriage doors where oak, like the front door, and she found the effect absolutely stunning. There was a fence, an actual white picket fence, that led to the backyard and she couldn't stop the smile that tugged at her mouth. She found the gate unlocked and swung it open, scanning the large yard, finding it as overgrown as the front, before stepping forward through the arbor that had been built at the entrance. A covered porch adorned the back of the house and she found herself drawn to it, taking the stairs in one large step and pressing her face to the French doors. What she saw was an average size kitchen, nothing too ornate, with what looked to be real wood cabinets and newer appliances. It looked large enough to be an eat-in kitchen but not so large that she would feel like there was wasted space.

It looked cozy, she thought, warm and inviting. It looked like the home that she'd been dreaming of since the moment they had started their search. Her heart was in her throat, tears suddenly burning her eyes, and she turned from the doors to sit heavily on the steps.

That's how Oliver found her. She hadn't heard him calling her name, hadn't heard the motorcycle's engine when he'd torn down the street. She'd been so lost in the images scrolling through her head like a movie that she hadn't even realized that he was there. It wasn't until he had appeared in front of her, his hands frantically checking her over, skimming her face and neck and shoulders, that she was pulled from her daydream.

"You scared the hell out of me!" he snapped, hauling her off of the steps and into his chest. His arms were vice-like as he held her.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, dazedly, "I just … this is it, Oliver. This is our house."

He sighed, stepping back enough so that he could look up at the house behind her. She felt his chest expand against hers at his sharp intake of breath.

"Its…"

She laughed, "I know."

"Mr. Queen? Ms. Smoak?"

They both turned at the sound of Janet's voice calling them from the front of the house. Oliver released her, his hand finding hers and his fingers tangling with her own. She held onto him tightly as they walked together around the house.

Janet met them in the driveway.

"The listing agent is meeting us here," she told them, "He should be here shortly. The house was built in 1944. There has only been one previous owner. Apparently Mr. and Mrs. Dougherty lived here for nearly seventy years. They raised both of their daughters here. From what I've been told, when Mrs. Dougherty passed away last year, the girls decided to sell the house but they've been very specific with their agent about who they want to have their parents' house. They've turned down several offers."

She smiled, looking between them.

"They've been very adamant that the house be sold to a young couple, a family," Janet continued, "They want another family like theirs to enjoy this home. They wanted to make sure that their parents' dream home would be appreciated for what it is."

She swallowed past the lump in her throat and looked up at Oliver. He grinned down at her, squeezing her hand.

"I don't even care what the inside looks like," she told him, "This is it, Oliver. This is our home."

She pressed herself into him, her face hidden in his shoulder as his arm came around her. She was trying desperately not to let her emotions overwhelm her. She would not cry.

"I couldn't agree more. If the owners are in agreement, we'll take it. I don't care about the cost. Felicity is right, this is our home."

No more discussion was needed. They were done looking. It had taken almost two months and more than a dozen other houses, but they had finally found the one that was theirs. The house that was perfect for them. She couldn't express in words – she, Felicity Smoak, queen of the never ending ramble – how happy she was. She loved him and she loved the house and they were finally home.


End file.
